Fill your life or live fully?

Which is your choice?

I've a chance of getting the job I wanted all my life … went for a trundle with the kids this weekend… it was great. All I really want to do is more of that…

All the evidence tells us that the best years of life are the latter years. All the hype says the opposite. So how reconcile to two?

laura_carstensen_older_people_are_happier

The difference is that a full life doesn’t mean filling your life!

You’re welcome to do a lot, but that’s neither here nor there when it comes to life fulfilment – that’s why the young look so fun, but the old are happier.

No, a full life is really all about living out each stage of life FULLY.

So, what are the stages and what do they mean?

0-14 Growing Up Growing a body, a personality.

15 – 21 Leaving the Family Who am I really?

22 – 34 Questions, Questions This is ME! Building a life (crisis around 30)

35 – 43 Mid-life Explosion Rebirth – all values open to question

44 – 50 Settling down Accommodation with new (spiritual) values OR the Battle-within

51 onwards The Mellowing Harvest Years: potential for full self-expression

This is the archetypal pattern of the human being.

Just like an Oak Tree will follow predetermined stages from acorn to sprout, sapling, young, mature than old tree, so too does each stage of the growth of the human being: the old woman exists in the young woman as much as the babe does in the crone. Each phase is pre-determined.

Yes, dear reader… that word is chosen judiciously. The stages of our physical and spiritual development are pre-determined. They are the same for all people, in all cultures and at all times.

We’re none of us that unique, and what we are experiencing comes with our age as much (actually a great deal more) than with what’s happening in our lives at that point in time!

Our future is not, and never was, an empty slate to be filled at our discretion

…ultimately, we start getting interested in other people. Our growth in these years depends on doing that… it’s not optional if you want a great older age!

Where we differ from the Oak is that we have two lines of development, not just one.

Like an Oak, our physical development is both choate and progressive So too is our spiritual (and consequently our emotional) development… and that’s where free will comes in. Just as an Oak in rich, watered soil will grow to an enormous size, the same acorn on a poor, windswept ridge will grow twisted and small.

From our late thirties onwards our physical capacity begins its inexorable decline. At the same time, the potential for spiritual growth actually begins [1].

There is one critical difference to note, however: while physical and material growth will occur no matter what you do, spiritual growth tales a great deal more conscious application.

3. Get a free pre-order of our book (just pay shipping). It’s called “Midlife Creation: how to take charge of the second half of your life. Just email “BOOK PLEASE” and I’ll send you a copy when it is published (around December).

4. If you want to ask some questions or get a sense of how to start looking for your own Leitmotif you can book a quick private chat with me HERE (pls note you can't register into a program this way, but you can check me out and see if we click)

[1] Does this mean younger people have no spiritual growth available, no, of course not. However, it is all growth in service of the real flourishing that occurs post 35. Yup, it really all starts in the second half!